Welcome to another AMAZING week of Sam and Dan Games! It is me Sam and with my game development partner Dan bringing you the latest news on what we are thinking about and what our goals are for this week. Read on to find this and more out!

Last Week's PTD2 Update
Last week we had a nice little update we got to see more of the story for PTD2. Since PTD2 has such a fast development speed the story is actually made as we go. I try to stay 2-3 steps ahead and I also try to think about how the whole story will end. To me the story is about the evil in each person and how it can come out but also how we can control and stop it. I haven't seen a lot of comments or emails about the story itself, I'm curious to hear what some of you think about it so far. I'm not oblivious enough to know that a good amount of people just skip over all the text and just play the level which is why I tend to highlight very important bits so that even people skipping can get the hints. Next!

Forum Contest
The Fan forum is now the Official PTD forum and it's getting a ton of new members, you should check it out to connect with other fans. If that is not enough then you will be happy to know that the forum is throwing a contest that is giving away shiny mews! Here is a video of Link's Collection http://youtu.be/9xP5Mfohp1o!
If you are interested in the contest go here: http://pandoragaming.co.uk/topic/9801977/1/

Sam's Graphic Edition
So making a game can be a very challenging task. As a game designer you want to test out gameplay ideas as fast as possible. You want to see how your idea looks like when you can actually play it. Usually what I do is that I will think about an idea and I will do my best to visualize the idea in my head. If the idea seems good enough then the next step is to program it into the game and play with it to see if its as good as you thought it was. For PTD2 this process is pretty easy, all of the graphics are already made I just need to cut them out and place them on the right spot. This makes it real fast and easy to try out new ideas and it makes the weekly updates possible. For Creature Universe TD since the graphics are not done then it becomes a lot harder to develop. Also using different languages and frameworks (programming stuff) that I have no experience with can start making simple things harder to do. Good quality graphics take many hours and hours to make. So how can I focus on the gameplay when I'm waiting for graphics and have to deal with programming issues. Well you make your own graphics and you stick with the programming that you know!
The goal here is to make an alpha version of the game that focuses on the gameplay while having what people call "programmer's graphics" in this case we are calling them "Sam's Graphics" so while the nice graphics are being carefully crafted I can still move on with design ideas and development and then at some point start swapping in the finished graphics.

So what does it mean to you? Well as you might have read (or not) before we will be doing some funding to keep PTD2, CUTD and Sam and Dan games alive pretty soon and one of the prizes will be to get access to this Sam's Graphic Edition of the game. You will get the game before anybody else and you get to see how AMAZING I draw! You will be able to give valuable feedback that will help shape the game and you will be helping us continue our work, which is to make games for you to enjoy! Sounds like a win-win! Oh and here is a sample of the title screen :)

Amazing, right?!

Time for the Weekly Progress!

Weekly Progress- Things you want done!
Every week I ask you guys to post what you want to get done for the next week in the blog comments. One of the things that I read a lot is to expand the Pokedex to include a lot of the pokemon that you are getting in the game and on Mystery Gifts. So this week I will start that process with the Generation 1 pokedex being added. Just like when the pokedex came out it will count what you have right now as if you had all the previous stages. For example if you have a shiny raticate it will count as if you also had a shiny rattata at some point. After the first time you log in it will no longer do this and only count what you have with you. So after that if you traded for a shadow Blastoise (not possible yet) it would only count as a Shadow Blastoise in the pokedex but not as a Shadow Squirtle and Wartortle. So pretty much don't worry about it!

For Mystery Gift this week we will have the remaining types: Poison, Rock and Bug to choose from and then I will pick a selection from that for you guys to vote on.

Finally I will be adding part of Route 32. You won't be able to access all of it right away since it is a big route with a bunch of things on it. Instead of rushing it and it being empty I will do it in parts as needed for the story. It will include new pokemon to catch! Something that I want to do for catching these new pokemon is to give them more interesting waves, instead of just a free roam type of level it might be a level that you can lose in but still have things to catch. Very similar to PTD1 levels.

I'm also fixing some critical bugs. The ability Hyper Cutter not showing up properly when you go to switch Trapinch's ability. A problem with Night Shade and a problem with Falkner's dialog showing up when you beat Lugia.

On top of all this I will make the first level when you pick the grass starter for our Creature game using my graphics :)

As I do every week the list below is how I'm doing in all these different areas and if I'm currently working. I update this throughout the week so keep checking back to see how I'm doing.

PTD2 v1.32.1 Alpha Released!

Mystery Gift - Skorupi

Change link in game

Change Graphic in game

Change Server Code

Get link and code from sponsor

Change Blog Links

New Pokemon

Graphics

New Abilities

Battle Armor

New Attacks

Knock Off

Pin Missile

Stats

Move List

Evolutions

Add to Breeding Center

Add to Trading Center

Dunsparce should only show up in waves inside Dark Cave not outside

Added Fearow's missing pokedex description

Sceptile can no longer incorrectly relearn the missing move X-Scissor

PTD2 v1.32 Alpha Released!

Added the New Wild Pokemon to the Research Mode List

Pokedex Upgrade - Adding Generation 1 Pokedex tracking

Client

Server

Wild Dunsparce have been seen wandering around Zubat and Geodude waves in the Dark Cave

first of all sounds great second i love how you allways ask us what we would like third i think you should spend more time on CUTD then PTD becuz i think your game sounds awesome fourth out of five i think as i may have said before that CUTD should have more mythic things like dragons the half man half bull guys ( can never remember the name ) mybe gorgons phoenixes trents or ents perhaps a giant sea turtle just a thought but if you take my advice i hope you put your own spin on it FIVE For PTD2 mybe some side quest of your own design like the litte girl in in cherry city lost her teddy bear and you have to find it so like after you talk to her the teddy bear will apper in such and such a place and when you give it to her you get like 10 oren berry's maybe hope this wasint to long for ya i tend to write run on sentences :\

just wondering, are you going to make steel coat (the item used to evolve onix into steelix) a store item? and if u already traded the guy in violet city with a belsprout, can u still trade him for a shiny onix?

Overall, looking great as always. Really excited about the alpha access to CUTD.

In particular, you asked about the story. Overall, I really like how you are setting it up, with the struggle between Giovanni and his grandson, and including the loss of the Silver's father. It sets up Silver to be the center of the struggle between good and evil, being bent both by blood and circumstance to despise the world, but somehow fighting that evil. I'm curious as to more of his backstory, when in his life his father died, who raised him, why he is currently "good" and such. The story comes out so slowly that it is hard to appreciate it all, but from what I've gathered, I think there are a lot of good ideas in it and I'm excited to see where things end up.

The main character appears to be a bit bland, but such is the fate of the protagonist of many games and stories—the hero is the one who always strives for good, unquestioned, fighting to defeat evil and save the world again. That's the classic paradigm, and it makes sense to stay in it since this is a Pokemon game. One thing about developing characters: it's easy to see them as either good or bad, or even struggling between those two things, but real people are rarely like that; instead, the question is not whether people want to do good or try and dominate the world, but what does good mean for them. Good can mean many things: protecting loved ones, finding wealth or power, preserving oneself, or plenty of other things. I think you could vary your characters a bit more in this regard.

Side note, I also liked where the story was going in the 1 vs 1, what with the unexplained battle against Ash, and Joey finally getting to be the star. I'd love to see that continue sometime.

I know you will add the houses in when you get to that part in the story (so I'll wait), but may I recomend to be more creative with the locked houses. I sent you examples on your e-mail. I entitled it CREATIVE CLOSED HOUSES

Oh, yeah, Sam, when are you going to fix the music? Only Route 29 is supposed to have the music you got playing on every single Route, and I'm pretty sure the trainer battle music isn't supposed to play when you're battling wild Pokemon, right?

I found this strange that the first time that I read the blog the one thing I missed was the "Vote PTD1 for Best Defense Strategy Game of 2012! Vote once a day until Januray 23!Pokemon Tower Defense 1 was nominated for Best Browser Defense Strategy game of 2012, help it win big by going tohttp://jayisgames.com/best-of/2012/defense-strategy/ and voting for it! " . How could I have missed that.

I am liking how the story is progressing. Very interested in what's gonna happen next. You do good work, Sam!

A suggestion -- and people will probably HATE me for suggesting this, haha! -- but maybe you could take a week off every month from adding new pokemon (via Mystery Gift or whatever). That way, you can concentrate instead on the story development or bug-fixing or whatever else you need to do. I'm thinking it's better for the story to progress than to accumulate pokemon but be stuck in the same routes for weeks. Anyway, if we believe you, Sam -- and I do! -- we'd get all pokemon eventually so what's the rush! :)

Of course, you could ignore all this and continue to give us new pokemon every week. I'd be just as happy! :D

Good luck on that Best Defense Strategy Game poll thing. Go vote, people!

Thanks! New Pokemon drive so much of the game community. The trading, the breeding, the shiny hunting. While the story is usually a few minutes and that's pretty much it. So it's more efficient to work on new pokemon since there is more bang for the buck. That's my reasoning for it at least.

It's not as strong as those you mentioned, but GULPIN isn't bad at all. It's got a nice move pool and it's the only one in the Amorphous egg group which means I'd have a better chance in breeding some shiny Gastly's!

Also, SEVIPER has equally powerful Attack and Sp. Attack... but people might not want a non-evolving Pokemon at this time....

Sam, when you add in the Gen 1 Pokedex you said it would only register once... Does that mean when transferring pokemon is available when we transfer say a charizard it only counts as a charizard and not a Charmander and charmeleon.

I have heard that you can get a mew when you beat lugia 100 times and when you beat lugia 200 times you get a shiny mew...is this true??? can you please tell me!!!and if it is true why can't you trade it at the trading room?

The next mysterygift being something special. Remember back when PTD2 was just starting and I put up all those Special Anime Inspired Pikachu ideas(Flying, Surfing, Boxing, and a new idea the Poketrix Time Glitch) along with the Crystal Onix.They were all destroyed when you updated the Commenting System so I'm gonna list them all again.(Format) Name[Status], Type, Abilities, Moves, Sprite Details. Note none of these special pokemon evolve(too much hassle), and they only breed regular(Reg,Shiny,Shad) formsFlying Pikachu[Reg.], Ele, Levitate/Static/LightningRod, Fly/TailWind/ThunderShock/, Regular Pikachu with a small bundle of balloons tied to it.Surfing Pikachu[Reg.], Ele, StormDrain/Static/LightningRod, Surf/RainDance/ThunderShock, Regular Pikachu on a small surfboard.Boxing Pikachu[Reg.], Ele/Fighting(Seems more fitting to have the type), Guts/Static/LightningRod, DynamicPunch/MachPunch/ThunderPunch/VoltTackle, Regular Pikachu with a pair of boxing gloves.Glitchu[Shad.], (format break) just a Pikachu, The Poketrix Time Glich Ash's Pikachu with Swadow Stars(not the aura, just the stars).Crystal Onix[Shiny], Rock/Water(it was a giant watersnake), ClearBody/RockHead/Sturdy, Dive/Dig/RockThrow, A Shiny Onix that is crystal colored instead.I know that most of these are custom jobs, but they are all modified easily enough from current content.I would be ecstatic if these were on the next poll because they're cool, unique, and not completely OP.P.S. Sam if you want to raise some money with these instead then might i suggest putting all of them in the adoption center(just give me a free copy of them all for the idea) because if I had the money to buy them I would(alas I don't, hence the free copy request[it would really suck to be the guy who couldn't get his own idea]).P.P.S. Damn this was a long one!

I voted for one that I thought was interesting. I voted for garbage! Imagine fighting with ice cream and garbage instead of Pokemon.... Well, it looks like trash-bag won't win anyway, so guys vote for the Pokemon you want.

I might be wrong, but from what I gather in the story, there's a "mysterious" reason why all the buildings are empty. And this mystery is what's driving the story for now. So we can't just ask Sam to populate the buildings if it would ruin the story he's trying to tell.Well, that's just my opinion...